


Primavera

by mrhiddles



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Stock Market, M/M, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 01:20:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrhiddles/pseuds/mrhiddles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor is a banker and small time trader. Loki sits on his bench and Thor finds he can't stop looking for him.</p><p>Then the market crashes and everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Primavera

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmxFAT581T4).  
> I just wanted to do something sort of quiet and different than what I usually write.
> 
> The only thing I understand about stocks is the emotional and financial fallout from a bad investment, so I apologize for any mistakes regarding terms and the like.

He sits on the bench every morning, staring at the foggy shroud that descends over the grey lake each day. He stays like that until the dew along the delicate folds of grass fade in soft sunlight and the breeze begins to sway to a hotter degree. He stays until his knees bob up and down and his thumbs play war over clasped hands. He stays until the dark swath of his hair falls into his eyes and he’s on his last cigarette, or his loaf of bread for the ducks is all used up.

Then he simply gets up and leaves.

Thor doesn’t know where he goes.

\--

Thor knows him.

But he doesn’t, really.

It feels like he does.

\--

Thor works as a banker across the street. It’s boring and his friends, Fandral and Sif especially, always dig into him to quit. Make a change in his life. Find something fun, something he likes.

“Hell,” Fandral says one day, “Don’t even bother with a job. Travel, have a lot of sex, buy crazy clothes and send them to Hogun as a joke.”

Thor laughs his easy laugh, not really answering. Hogun frowns like he enjoys the action.

But Thor doesn’t quit. He can’t.

It’s only two weeks after that conversation he sees the stranger across the street at barely four in the morning, feeding the ducks.

\--

The first time he saw him, Thor thought he was odd. The only ones up at this hour should be him—because he was in charge of setting new codes and checking the safes—deli workers, and bicyclists.

Normal people got up at eight and had breakfast and coffee or juice and read the paper like the predetermined cliché life had always strived to maintain.

But then, the stranger didn’t look too normal.

There was no suburban housing in this part of town. It was all offices and towering high risers with men scaling the sides and cleaning windows on shaky bearings. It was people dressed in suits and dresses and carried numbers in their heads rather than wallets in their pockets. It was suit cases and phone numbers and ceaseless movement, chatting, and _chaos_.

And this man sits in the center of it all, in the park no one really pays attention to, feeding the ducks and smoking a pack before the sun barely rises.

Day after day after day.

\--

 _Today_ , Thor thinks to himself.

Thor takes three steps, access card pinched tight between two fingers. He faces the stranger.

He isn’t smoking today.

Thor’s colleague pulls into a parking space and the sound of a door opening and shutting draws Thor back to reality.

He turns back to the lock and slides the card through, punching a code into the number pad quickly.

His gut is a nervous jumble as his colleague waves him a good morning and walks past, unhindered and unburdened. Thor’s palm sweats as he lets the door fall closed.

He’s nervous all day for a reason he cannot put name to.

\--

Every day is the same.

Thor wakes and leaves his bed. Brushes his teeth, slicks his hair back so it rests tidy and parted against his skull. He stares at the laugh lines around his mouth and his eyes and he can’t help but smile to himself in the mirror, proving his age. Time seems slow and then it’s there, in your face all at once.

He goes to work and comes home.

Thor knows he’s done hardly anything with his life.

Even less worth putting title to.

\--

The only difference is the dark haired stranger and Thor wants to know his name. See his face.

He can’t really say why.

\--

The weeks pass by and his eyes seek out the stranger without any thought. It’s the expectation. It’s the day to day. Sometimes he isn’t there and Thor feels something grow heavy in his chest, like fatigue. He counts bills and smiles when it’s needed. He goes to the lunches and they sit around watching stocks in the back as they lock up.

The days when the man isn’t on the bench, the ducks gather round and sit like fat, legless things. They dig for worms and peck at the water and nestle in shade.

Thor finds himself standing underneath a tree nearest the parking lot after work on these days. The days when he can afford to stare at that bench and wonder why. Why is the water so appealing? Why does the man sit there for hours and then go on his way?

Thor wants to know.

\--

He thinks about it over dinner. When he’s reading a book or watching a movie or sports. When he hears music he thinks of dark hair and slender hands tossing out bread, flipping a lighter open and shut.

Thor finds an old lighter—he stopped smoking years ago—and takes up the ponderous habit of clicking it shut, again and again.

He’s trying to learn the stranger. It’s like almost speaking with the man.

\--

And then he’s there one day. Just there.

Thor stares and a customer has to raise her voice to grab his attention back to the thousand dollar bill he holds in lax fingers. He quickly secures it and computes the necessary transactions and then he’s handing her a receipt, the paper nearly falling out of his hand as she has to grab it from him.

It’s unprofessional and the next person in line huffs at him like he’s a fool, but he doesn’t care. He can’t.

The man is at the other side of the building, keying away at an ATM and from what Thor can see of his stance, he’s not happy about what he’s doing. His shoulders are set, head slouched forward, foot raised mid-tap. He’s wearing all black, tight jeans and a jacket that fits snug to his waist. It looks like soft leather.

Thor feels his pulse thunder.

_Turn, this way, just—_

And then the man is finished, pocketing the bills and turning the other way. Thor can’t see his entire face as he leaves the building, but he was definitely unhappy.

Thor is distracted the rest of the day, wondering why he was so upset. What had happened to make him so. The whats and the ifs and the hows raining through his head, washing over to pound intermittently at his chest. It costs him his focus and when his manager sees, he’s sent home early. He’s tired, Thor tells her. It won’t happen again, he says.

She nods and he’s grateful for the time alone.

Thor’s first course of action is to head to the park, but he sees it’s empty.

He looks around, curious, nervous.

The drive home is lonely. Stifling.

\--

The next day is the same. Nothing.

Thor accepts the absence at the park, but keeps a hopeful eye turned toward the ATM just in case.

\--

The next renders the same result. And the next. And the next after that.

Thor feels his life resume its routine, assuming the boring and hoping for the small divergence, the one spark of that stranger.

He doesn’t sleep too much anymore.

\--

It’s autumn now and the leaves turn bright shades of red and orange. They fall to the ground, painting everything in crunchy swaths of ruby and gold. They’re swept almost completely away by the time the business surges through, just before lunch.

Numbers fall faster than the leaves and Thor finds his time occupied by more pressing matters.

\--

He has to move. Before, his flat was spacious, had a view of the far reaching clouds and the twinkling bridge overlooking the bay. Now he has a view of the wall of his neighbor. Outside the door is a garage and a small lot filled with shit cars and people who take frequent smoke breaks to escape the screaming from inside their houses.

His car is traded down. A tinny piece of metal and plastic with an engine that pukes black gunk out the exhaust on a good day. If it were a living thing, it would be terminal, and he knows it. But it was only a thousand dollars, and for his commute, that’s alright.

His colleagues have dark shadows under their eyes and they seem less put together. They look how Thor feels and this, this might be it. This might be what makes him.

The choice to travel is a luxury now. More than he has ever known.

He wonders what became of the stranger, and it distracts him enough to think he has enough money for decent food next month.

\--

People start being let go.

Volstagg calls him first, tells him, through hushed tears that he was fired. It’s three in the morning when he calls and Thor listens to him worry over paying for his children’s clothes and food and school—

Volstagg had been an attorney for fifteen years.

Sif was next. She got angry. “Lawyers will be needed now more than ever, and they all have their heads so far up their asses they can’t see it!”

They, being the shareholders.

They, being people like Fandral. He traded for fun and bought coke and hooked up with more women than Thor could keep track of. He was a good cheat. An honest cheat, if there was ever such a thing.

He invested badly. One slip.

Now he sleeps on Thor’s couch and watches reruns on television.

\--

Thor wonders when it will be his turn. It’s been almost nine years here. The time to be fired was now more than ever it seemed, and people with jobs walked around with eyes darting around for their managers. Paranoia settled in like plague and it was a hard thing to shake when people hardly came in anymore.

The bank had been almost empty for a week.

\--

“What if we’re shut down? I heard Vanir is bankrupt. We could be next.”

“Asgard Co. isn’t going anywhere, be quiet!”

“You’re only saying that because you’re new!”

“Fuck off!”

Thor hears the whispers between the sparse customer and when the manager walks by. Looks are exchanged across the room that say more than a hushed concern ever could.

There is fear in people’s eyes and Thor feels panic gnaw like cancer at his heart day in and day out.

\--

Suddenly his dreams are filled with the stranger again. He hasn’t dreamt in months.

When he wakes up, Thor feels tears trail down his cheek.

\--

Thor starts going back. He hasn’t seen the man in months and so feels confident enough to sit on the bench. The ducks are absent save for a few who sit wary on the water, watching and quacking at each other.

The sound amongst the continuous chaos of the streets makes him smile.

\--

Thor keeps going back. He spends most mornings before work at the lake. He spends his lunch there.

It’s given him some sense of calm in the rush of panic and he’s thankful for it. If the buildings around him go bankrupt, if people lose their homes or their families or their friends—this lake will still be here. These ducks will keep coming back, content with the cool water on their bellies. Unmoving. Unchangeable. A constant.

He feels he understands the stranger more than he ever has.

\--

“You’re in my spot.”

Thor whips his head around, seeing a pair of green eyes staring at him. It’s the stranger.

He has a sharp nose and cheeks that catch the slant of sunlight pouring butternut gold over the buildings and filtering through the leaves. He sighs and looks out toward the water.

Thor sees he’s wearing a neat suit, smart and black with an opal tie. His black hair is swept back and shorter, falling just behind his ears.

Thor drinks in his visage, unashamed.

“You’re usually here in the morning,” Thor blurts. He’s excited for the first time in months and he can’t control his tongue.

The man tilts his head. “That I am. Or I was.”

“The ducks left a few weeks after you.”

He laughs. “Had you been watching me, bank teller?”

Now he feels embarrassment. “I—I work across the street. The building with floor to ceiling windows…”

“Yes, I know,” he says calmly.

Thor swallows, not knowing what to say. Months of questions and improvised conversations he’s fabricated with this man and he doesn’t even know his name.

“I’m Thor,” Thor tells him, ears burning and hand outstretched.

The man eyes him, but doesn’t move to take his hand and shake it. “You work for Odin.”

“Yes.” He feels the crease of his eyebrows drawing together, and thinks of age for the first time in what seems like years.

“A stoic firm.”

“He is my father.”

“You have a job then, congrats.” The stranger claps his hands and smirks.

Thor feels unnerved. “Judge as you’d like, but I don’t work directly for him. I left years ago. I only work as a teller.” _But you already knew that_ , he thinks. Still liable to failure, to disappointment, to not meeting his expectations—

“Family trouble then?”

“Something like that.”

The stranger turns and gives Thor a wide grin, full of teeth.

“You came in one day, took out a lot of money. You seemed…” _sad, unhappy, angry, hateful—_

“Death in the family.”

“I’m sorry,” Thor says instantly, feeling awful that such a thing never occurred to him.

“It’s no matter. It led me to a job after all. Timing could not have been better.” Again, that wicked grin, tinged with something like bitterness.

“I forgot to bring any bread,” the man says suddenly.

“Next time?”

“Maybe.”

Traffic horns blare behind them and the sound of heels and shoes clack along in a bustle on the pavement, drowning everything in a familiar haze of city life. The breeze picks up and Thor can feel his hair rustle with it.

“How much did you lose? Who did you invest in?”

Thor blanks. No one, _no one_ asked that question. It’s been taboo for ages at this point and Thor thinks maybe this guy managed to leave before it got so bad. Maybe, maybe—

“Vanir.”

“Hm, interesting. I think you can guess where my investment was.”

“Asgard?”

“Yes," he says with meaning.

“Is that unusual?”

He shrugs. “My father was head of Jotunheim. It was pretty big until, well.”

Thor feels his tongue go thick. Death in the family. Crash of the market. Jotunheim left without an heir.

“I’m Loki, by the way.”

Loki. The stranger Thor’s been watching and wondering after for months. He finally has a name and a face to put to the one who fed ducks and smoked enough to drown a fire in ash.

Loki. Of Jotunheim Industrial.

Loki is smiling at Thor and Thor realizes he must have gotten out rich in the end. He took precautions. He realizes then that Loki is much more than some guy who stared at lakes and fed ducks all day.

“Well met, Loki,” Thor says earnestly, fondly. He holds out his hand once more. He wants to know what it will feel like. He doesn’t know when it became like this.

“Well met, Thor,” Loki murmurs.

Loki takes Thor’s hand and squeezes.

Thor finds he is smiling.


End file.
